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2 piece barrels

From what I understand, a two piece barrel is more accurate because the second piece has a larger bore than the first so that the remaining air is propelled around the ball to give a more accurate shot. The porting is to help with that. If you look at a boomstick down one end and then down the other you will notice the bore difference. A 2-Piece IS more accurate and not because they cost more.

Everyone go spend $120 on a boomstick. They are the most accurate barrels. Why you may ask. Well its simply, the little dye logo magically makes balls shoot further and go straighter.
Two part barrels and porting do you help your accuracy at all. They make these things up to try and convince you to buy it. People believe it, and it spreads by work of mouth. You think that componies are going to deny it?
They may be a little more consistant, other than that you get nothing. They also use more gas.

Re: 2 piece barrels

Originally posted by MAGalomania From what I understand, a two piece barrel is more accurate because the second piece has a larger bore than the first so that the remaining air is propelled around the ball to give a more accurate shot.

Well if that is true why not just use a one piece barrel that is 5 inches or so long. I would guide the ball the same distance as a boomstick, and after it leaves the barrel the air is propelled around the ball. Right?

Have you ever shot a 5 inch barrel? they have no accuracy whatsoever. The reason the two piece works is because the second piece still provides direction so that the air is not randomly pushed around the ball. As with all barrels they are tested in labs before put on the market. Why do you think the Freak uses the same idea? It is more accurate. You fools who do not understand the scientific aspect of it are of course going to think that it is a sales gimmick. My question for you is if they arent more accurate then why are they so widely used on the professional level? Of course they get it for free, but they wouldnt use a bad barrel just because it was free.

Originally posted by MAGalomania You fools who do not understand the scientific aspect of it are of course going to think that it is a sales gimmick.

It's not? A Boomstick is a 4" barrel with a tip on it that makes it look longer... but you don't hear many accuracy complaints. It might as well use a cardboard tube with holes in it instead, makes no difference. 4" barrel, 16" barrel... same accuracy. Gas efficiency/sound is another matter when you compare different barrels.

Make me one and send it to me and you win.
I really want to see a barrel with a boomstick back and a cardboard front. I will even pay you if you make it and it shoots well. The thing is...you are still making a two piece barrel and it doesnt disprove my point. It is true though that a 5 inch barrel will not shoot as well. Test it. Take any two piece that can be separated and try it out. You wont get the same results

Originally posted by chadcummings
From what I have read and understand, the first 3-4 inches only affects the accelleration....after that, it affects it's stabilization and accuracy.

In a stepped bore, two piece barrel like a boomstick the paintball is going to fit tightest in the back section of the barrel and that is where it is going to get the most acceleration from the air pressure behind the ball. As the bore increases slightly in the barrel front, the bore is still tight enough that the air pressure continues to press against the back of the paintball rather than all escaping around the sides until the paintball reaches the porting of the barrel. By opening up the bore slightly in the front section of the barrel it would allow a bit more air pressure to escape around the paintball than would occur in a non-stepped barrel and therefore it would make the stepped barrel a bit less efficient in theory. This would require greater air pressure behind the ball to achieve the same paintball velocity as a non-stepped barrel provided that the porting was identical on both.

There is no way that opening up the bore and allowing air to escape around the paintball (and also allowing the paintball to bobble back and forth against the sides of the barrel) is going to improve accuracy. It may help to quiet down the barrel by serving as a type of porting to gradually release air pressure prior to the paintball reaching the actual porting holes at the end of the barrel but I just can't see it doing anything else. If the barrel opens up enough so that the paintball is not making fairly uniform contact with the sides of the bore, the ball just has room to start wiggling back and forth earlier and this should actually hurt accuracy compared to a straight bore barrel. Accuracy is all about paint to barrel match thru the section where the paintball is accelerating inside the barrel. Stepped bores and porting have nothing to do with creating accuracy. Boomsticks are good barrels. They come in a variety of bore sizes for paint to barrel match, they are well machined, they are quiet and many people think they look cool. They are just not any more accurate than a well matched and honed brass barrel with no porting.

MaGalomania, don't get defensive here bro, enjoy, its all in fun. AGD has done a lot of research on barrels and there are some fine posts elsewhere on this board that discuss the technical aspects of what is really meaningful in length, bore size, rifling and porting in barrels. Check em out. Much of this data (the stuff from AGD anyway) was derived from carefully executed experimentation and we should be thankful that AGD and their folks go to the lengths they do to research and share the info with us here.

Pro teams spray a lot of paint and the concept of accuracy by volume comes into play in tournaments. If they are sponsored by a barrel company whose product is slightly less accurate than whatever else is out there they can compensate for it by dumping enough paint to still get their marks on the opponent anyway. The higher the rate of fire, the greater the chance that even with a less accurate barrel you are going to hit what you are shooting for. Pragmatic pro's therefore endorse their barrel sponsor's product realizing that rate of fire, teamwork and positioning are more important to winning tournaments than pinpoint accuracy an additional 20 feet out.

A good friend is one that will come and bail you out of jail.
A great friend is one that is sitting next to you in jail saying "Man that was F#%*ing Awesome"!
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Originally posted by Lentz ok every one go use your 5 inch barrels ill stick to the 14-16inchers that rule the airball fields muhahahahahaha

What do u do on YOUR airball fields? polevault to the flag? 16" you might as well get the bogus 48" CP on the main forum...but to each his own, that is why they make an 18" stone cold II and a 20" boomstick.

All of these posts are rediculous. cold hard evidence shows Miscue is right as well as Sarah and Slapp. I believe that Tom Kaye himself did the barrel testing and proved that 11" or less was the best anything longer is just overkill and wasted gas in one piece barrels. I have had several barrels, and one of my favorites was my 6" Taso, and my 8" Taso. I do own longer stuff, like 12" just so I can sight down it.

I saw no difference between my boomstick and my all american. I dont believe in those telephone poles for barrels, now i use a freak kit and use the smallest tip possible. I am working now to get the tip made 8" instead of 10.

the only thing that matters is the paint/barrel match. length is a preference.

You saved me some typing about all of this. Tom will be happy to see that we did gain something from the class.
One other fun filled fact was when TK said that back players would be better off with shorter barrels and front players with longer barrels. Due to the fact that with the short barrel being louder can draw more attention away from a front man by creating more noise.

Toms Tech tip ( #2? ) about putting powder down a barrel and firing a single shot then looking at the scrapes in the powder to see how the ball travelled is worth doing.

I think a MUCH more interesting discussion is how different barrel technologies affect the accuracy when there is a BAD barrel to paint match, because when using field paint that is more often that not what I have to do when choosing a barrel. In the real world it's this type of information that is way more useful than working out who is right about what happens when the paint to barrel match is perfect.

To kick things off in a nice controvertial fashion, I think that the boomstick is the worst possible barrel when the paint is too big because half of it's length is ported.. tight ball, lots of friction, all the gas goes out the ports. Ball must accelerate to over 300fps mid-barrel to be 300fps on exit. BAD.

Some barrel materials are better than others when using paint that is too big because friction is an issue, and the mu between a barrel and paintball with one coating ( eg J&J ceramic ) may be better than another even though the bore is the same.

etc. Anyone? I have less experience with paint too small for a barrel.

Tom explained it in his Barrel Post

Tom explained it in his Barrel Post about efficiency. 2 piece barrels work... to some degree. Yes, I agree that the Boomstick IS overpriced, which is why I bought mine for 75 used (which is probably a lessser price then most of your one piece barrels).

2 piece barrels consist of a control bore (stainless length) and a tip (black aluminum part, larger bore, doesnt even touch the ball). The control bore is where the ball is accelerated to field velocity limits. The tip just vents excess gas and noise out port by port which gives the silencing effect. The tip does not stabalize the ball (if anything, it may even hurt the balls trajectory if the tip is misaligned which may cause the ball to curve).

Now the way they work, since the control bore is short (exactly 6" on the Boomy), it will accelerate a ball until it leaves the stainless section, and enters the tip. This sudden change in bore size will cut off acceleration abrupty and will create more consistent velocities at the chrono.

The way I translate it is like this. If you have ppl running the 200M dash, everytime they finish will yield different elapsed times. If they were timed on the 100M line instead on their 200M run, more consistent times would be there since fatigue hasnt set in on them yet. At the 100M line, they would be running at their peak performace.

The same way in 2 way barrels, the 6" control bore length is just enough length to propel the ball before the volume has increased to a level where the pressure provides little ability to accelerate the ball.

Its even more impotant in the Mag, since there is no dwell period. Theres no duration of the valve opening. All the gasses stored in the Air chamber is the only gas used as propellant. And dont forget, the farther ball travels down the barrel, the more volume will be created thus less pressure. This is similar to the runner example since the acceleration is ended before the fatigue of incresed volume sets in. Its will give it and end it abrupty so a consistent velocity is created.

The 2 piece barrel in theory is great! But on the field, what does this translate into? Not that many ppl notice too much of a difference. Some do.

I like my barrel, accurate, silent, kewl looking, all for 75 used. Can you beat that?

well, i know one thing, the stock cocker and mag barrels aren't very accurate, but hey what do i know?

just stop worrying about what barrel ya have... i mean screw it, when ya go in a game do ya loook around think, okay, he has a non ported barrell or crap he has a ported barrel? don't worry what barrel ya have, if ya can't hit'em your too far away. i mean from about 2 feet away potrted vs. no ported ain't goin to matter much....

No NO No..porting patter is NOTHIN! all porting does is silence the ball. Paintballs accellerate for the first 4-6 inches depending on pressure...That is why they make short barrels, they r for the player who doesn;t want all this 18 and 16 inch crap that makes a ball silent...yet loses 80 feet of range because it is losing all of the air behind the ball fomr the porting. The perfect rec size barrel is 12...in tourneys i use my 10 inch boomy. I choose boomsticks because they are small bore and shoot accuaratly. The ss part of the barrel is about 5 inches or so long..the rest is the aluminum wiht a couple of inches or porting..this will give me plentof distance, but i will be sacrificing my position because it will be a little louder. Pretty much if u set urslefup with even a nice single piece like a dye aluminum or whatever it doesn't matter because it will essencially shoot the same as a boomy.

Well,
its me again, again, just another add on, the Boomy is acutally a 6" barrel with a fancy tip on. My old barrel, the J&J 2 piece (of shiet ---> tip bent rather easily when I fell down on it) was a little shorter, the control bore was 5.5", and the JT was about the same.

The way I see it, the trend is starting to become shorter control bores, which gets better consistencies. Nowadays, gas efficiency can be sacraficed since we now have 5000 psi tanks (new PMI) which is most likely good for shooting a case of paint.

As for tips, they are only for silencing. Not much for stabalization, once a ball is accelerated to field velocity (even less) it pretty much has its own flight path and does not need a 20" tip to guide it. It does make a very significant silencing effect the longer the tip is. On my J&J Full Tilt, I had a 10" tip and a 14" tip (bent), when i fwlt like jumping over laydowns and snakes, I put my 10 on, 14" for woods. There is a very noticeable difference between a 14 and a 10. The 10 is soooooo much more noisy, while with a 14", the gun sound more like a little click and a puff of gas. With no tip at all, the shots were still pretty close together, but damn those shots were loud!